


Do Rockstars Dream Of Electric Sheep?

by themoononastick



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2011-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:49:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoononastick/pseuds/themoononastick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spencer has weird dreams, questions his sexuality and spends a lot of time hiding things away in boxes in his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Rockstars Dream Of Electric Sheep?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the drawn_to hoilday exchange. Thanks to cmonkatiekatie & cynthia_arrow for the beta.

Sometimes Spencer dreams he's in college, spending his days worrying about essays and reading lists and midterms and trying not to fall asleep in lectures. And sometimes he dreams he’s working in a normal boring everyday office type job with deadlines and cubicles and gossiping about last night’s TV by the water cooler. And sometimes, Spencer dreams that he’s working as a door to door salesman selling encyclopedias to bored housewives who answer the door in baby doll night dresses with curlers in their hair, but that’s a whole other story.

When he dreams about college or offices he always wakes up feeling kind of wistful, like, ‘that could be my life if Ryan hadn't done x and I hadn't agreed to y and q wasn't the square root of the hypotenuse of p and isn't it a shame I'm missing out on TV dinners and deadlines and drinks with the gang Friday night after work’. Which, yeah, is dumb because, hello, rock star. He has the life that most people who actually do have shitty Monday to Friday desk jobs or who are sweating over essay writing in college dream about, so what the hell? But then he figures it's just his subconscious filling in the dream gap that’s been left by the fact his life is basically fantasy fodder.

The encyclopedia-selling dreams, on the other hand, have less to do with subconscious desires for a quote unquote normal life, and more to do with watching far too many really cheesy porn flicks late at night on the bus with Brendon. Like too many to the extent that Spencer stopped being turned on by any of it a long time ago and actually started taking notice of camera angles and the difference in quality from one porn production house to the next and at what point fake tits move from attractive in a ‘seriously they should move more than that’ way to ‘yeah, no, that's just ridiculous, how the fuck does she walk with those things glued to her chest, no, really, Brendon, how?’

Not that he and Brendon have discussed the whole monotony of porn watching or the concepts of objectification versus fantasy fulfillment and self-insertion as it relates to Sgt Pecker's Lonely Hearts Club Gangbang or America's Most Willing, or anything.

Except that they have. Kind of a lot. In between revoicing what little dialogue the films in question have in a Mystery Science Theatre kind of a way.

Which. Should probably be way weirder than it is. But isn’t. Really.

And the other thing that has never really flagged itself as weird in Spencer’s mind is the actual act of watching porn with Brendon. Because Spencer is pretty sure watching porn is supposed to be a thing that couples do together when they can’t be bothered with foreplay any more. Or a solitary thing, mainly partaken of by the greasy, slightly creepy guys he and Ryan used to point and laugh at as they scurried from one strip joint to the next at the seedier end of town. But somehow watching guys whose, for the most part, only attractive feature is the size of their dick, fucking women whose tits defy the laws of nature, never seems odd, or not quite right, or anything but just another extension of the, okay, slightly strange dynamic that they have as a band.

Because they all, and Brendon especially, have a total disregard for the concept of personal space, and a habit of falling asleep draped all over each other. And then there’s the fact that spending so much time squashed close together in the cramped confines of a tour bus means that they all know exactly how each other sounds when they’re coming, because curtains don’t do much more than muffle the sound of jerking off and they don’t really do that especially effectively. Which means that, really, in a weird kind of a way, sex is just another part of the background noise of touring and watching porn is more of a normal day-to-day activity than it probably should be.

Spencer does sometimes wonder if he should question it, but it’s easier not to. That way only madness and uncomfortable feelings around the breakfast table lie.

Because it’s not like he and Brendon watch porn for, like, _sexual_ reasons. It’s not like Brendon is trying to seduce him with the greatest bangs of the seventies or anything. Because Spencer is one hundred percent sure that isn’t what it’s all about. Or, okay, ninety eight percent sure. He maybe thought that might have been what was going on the first couple of times but… yeah, no, Spencer knows now he was maybe just projecting old feelings onto a new situation where they didn’t belong. And Spencer learned long ago that there are certain thoughts that belong in the past, or, more specifically, belong in the box in his mind that he packs all the things he would rather forget about into. The box that has ‘DO NOT OPEN’ written in red on the top of it and is surrounded by police tape that says ‘Danger, do not cross this line’. Spencer decided long ago that there some things are best ignored, because if he ignores them for long enough then they will maybe fade away and disappear.

 

*

 

Last night, though, Spencer just had a run of the mill playing on stage naked dream, so it must be a Tuesday. In theory it should be an anxiety dream, he knows this from reading countless new-agey advice columns in countless trashy magazines that always seem to get left lying around the bus (even though no one admits to buying them) and are only slightly less addictive than reruns of classic Jerry Springer chair throwing moments at 3am when he can’t sleep. But in his case naked drumming dreams translate more to ‘I am Spencer, hear me roar.' Or in actual fact, ‘hear me pound the hell out of my drums, and yes I’m naked, d’you got a problem with that? ‘Cos I sure as hell don’t.’

But dreams about being on stage always leave him feeling tired and achy, like he really did play through a whole set while asleep in his bunk, so Spencer’s kind of glad he’s the first one awake because it means he has full access to the coffee pot and there’s no need to attempt conversation while he waits for the drip.

Spencer’s not alone for long though. The pot isn’t even half full before Brendon stumbles out from the bunks with a look about him that Spencer has learned either means Brendon’s been awake all night or that he’s been hiding cans of Red Bull in his bunk again and has already mainlined enough caffeine to kill an elephant. It’s at times like this that Spencer wonders if there’s an AA equivalent for ex-Mormons who need help with their caffeine addiction. And if there isn’t, whether he should find someone willing to start one. For the good of Brendon’s health, and everyone who has to deal with him in a caffeine frenzy’s sanity.

And the other thing Spencer is wondering is if they should have that talk again, the one about communal living and appropriate clothing choices. Because the whole as close to naked as possible thing that Brendon is so fond of is getting tougher for Spencer to deal with on a daily basis. There’s like this direct correlation between the age and rattiness of the boxers Brendon chooses to wander around in (even though the elastic in the waistband is close to failing and Brendon spends half his time pulling them back up his hips as he walks) and failure of Spencer’s ability to pack certain thoughts and feelings neatly away in the box in his mind. In fact Spencer is pretty sure that soon he is going to need a bigger box, or some kind of large storage space with doors that can be closed. Spencer very carefully does not think of the word ‘closet’.

So maybe he should just forget talking to Brendon about him wearing more clothes, because then Spencer can just pretend he doesn’t notice the way that Brendon’s boxers accentuate the curve of his ass. Spencer is really good at not noticing things; he could win medals if it were an Olympic sport.

Spencer moves in front of the coffee pot in a vague attempt to stop Brendon from getting his hands on any more of his favourite early morning vice. But it’s early and Spencer is still half asleep and his heart's not really in it, so it only takes a quick bump of Brendon’s hips and him saying, "you owe me twenty dollars," for Spencer to move out of the way and hop up so he is sitting on the countertop, staring at Brendon’s profile while Brendon communes with the spirit of the bean.

Spencer runs through the list of reasons why he might owe Brendon money in his head. He’s pretty sure he didn’t break anything of Brendon’s and he hasn’t borrowed any money recently and… Spencer gives up thinking after a minute or so and just asks. It’s easier that way. "Huh? Why?"

Brendon shrugs and pours himself another cup of coffee as he says, "You lost the bet, you know, the _bet_ , the big one we’ve had going for ever," like he thinks Spencer will know what he’s talking about.

Spencer doesn’t know what he’s talking about, they have a lot of bets running between them, they’re from Vegas for fuck’s sake, betting is what they do. "Seriously, Bren, it’s too early for being vague."

Brendon turns and leans back against the counter top, humming happily to himself as he takes a sip of coffee before nodding his head in the general direction of the bunks. "Jon and Ryan are fucking."

"Fucking what?" Spencer sighs. If Jon and or Ryan have already done something to annoy Brendon then it’s going to be a long and potentially irritating day. "Fucking assholes, fucking liars who lie, fucking hippies who need to cut back on the dope smoking or at least learn to share better?"

"Well, technically, all three of those options are true," Brendon grins into his coffee mug and waggles his eyebrows in a half-hearted, early morning kind of a way, "But no, not fucking anything. Just fucking. As in they are fucking. Each other. In the back lounge. Or they were earlier anyway, I don’t know if they still are because it’s not like I went and checked or anything and I doubt either of them has the staying power to actually, you know, fuck _all_ night or anything, but they got kind of loud last night and woke me up and I was going to go shout at them but I got halfway through the door and realized what was going on and kind of backed out again really quickly because, you know, _fucking_. It’s kind of inconsiderate of them really, like, I left my book in there last night and I want to go get it, but there’s an issue with nakedness and interrupting and I’m not sure what the etiquette is. Like do I just barge in and ask if they could please stop fucking and hand me my book or do I wait for them to come out here and then run in and grab it and hope it isn’t near anything gross. Oh god, what if it is near something gross? What if it was underneath them or something while they were you know. I’m gonna call Pete, Pete will know what I should do, or maybe Gabe. Who do you think has had more experience with random acts of fuckery in the back lounge of a tour bus, Pete or Gabe? No wait, I’ll call Patrick."

Brendon moves to grab a cell phone that’s been left lying on the table. The phone’s not actually Brendon’s, Spencer thinks it looks like Jon’s, and it wouldn’t be the first time one of them had used a phone that wasn’t theirs without asking first, but Spencer’s pretty sure that Patrick won’t want to be dragged into the strange little fantasy world that Brendon’s living in this morning, so he grabs the phone before Brendon can and slips it into his pocket saying, "No calling anyone. Also, they’re probably not fucking. We had that talk about the internet being a strange place and the things on it not being true, right? And that clicking on links that Pete sends you can only lead to confusion and the misinterpretations of everyday situations. They probably just fell asleep on top of each other. Again."

Brendon rolls his eyes and, what the hell? Eye rolling is Spencer’s job, not Brendon’s. The way it works is: Brendon says something stupid, Spencer rolls his eyes and explains the actual reality of the situation, Brendon admits he was wrong and that Spencer is always right, the universe continues on its merry way as normal. Not the other way around.

Brendon is still rolling his eyes when he says, "Yeah, see, no, I don’t click on Pete’s links. Okay maybe occasionally, out of curiosity when I can’t work out what the random bits of text speak he uses to explain them mean, but that’s not the point. The point is, I know fucking when I see it and they. Are fucking. For a start they were both naked and Jon had his legs wrapped around..."

Spencer interrupts before Brendon can go into any more detail because, ew, way too much information for this time of the morning, and also, "Are you sure?"

Spencer is beginning to wonder if he woke up in an alternate reality where he is the one who misinterprets things and Brendon is the one who gets to be right all the time. Which. Is weird. Maybe he’s still dreaming and if he pinches himself he’ll wake up and everything will be normal again. Spencer pinches himself. It hurts. He must be awake. Damn.

Brendon is looking at him like Spencer’s a small child who doesn’t understand what happens when daddy and daddy love each other very much.

"Well, unless Ryan was giving Jon a really thorough prostate exam with his dick, then, yeah, I’m sure."

It should be disturbing how quickly and easily his mind can conjure up an image to go with Brendon’s words. And doubly disturbing that in his head Ryan is wearing a nurse’s uniform made of rubber and Jon has a stethoscope draped round his neck, but Spencer is too busy thinking about the actual meaning of what Brendon said to worry about that right now, because, "Huh, Ryan didn’t say anything."

Or maybe Ryan has said something, he’s been doing a lot of eyebrow twitching and eye widening recently and while that works with some things, Spencer kind of needs to know the actual topic of conversation before he’s able to translate Ryan’s not-speak. Also, Spencer had just assumed Ryan was working on cultivating a facial tick or something, to go with the monocle and the white linen safari jacket and culottes he’d taken to wearing recently.

Spencer always makes sure to avoid talking to Ryan about his clothing choices for fear of the three hour lecture on the subject of personal style versus societal norms that anyone foolish enough to ask Ryan what the fuck he’s wearing and why is bound to receive. Spencer learned that when he was 8 and Ryan was 9 and spent two weeks of the summer wearing what Spencer is pretty sure was a skirt but Ryan swore blind was a kilt. He always wishes he’d saved the negatives when Ryan made him burn all copies of the pictures his mom took. They would have made excellent blackmail material.

"I’m sure he was going to tell you soon, maybe he got distracted or something.” Brendon pats Spencer’s arm in what is probably supposed to be a soothing manner, but that, in reality, makes Spencer kind of want to punch Brendon for being patronizing. “Oh! Maybe it was their first time! Like a spur of the minute, oh my god you’re so hot, let’s have sex kind of thing. I mean it’s not like it’s surprising, right? One of them had to hop on board the clue bus at some point. Dude, I am so glad I didn’t like interrupt. First times should be special. They should be memorable in a soft focus, hey honey, do you remember our first time, wasn’t it magical kind of a way, not in a haze of embarrassment at getting walked in on mid fuck. Heh, em-bare-ass-ment, that kind of fits. Hey, where are you going?"

Spencer pauses on his way back to the bunks and points, "Back to bed."

"You’re going to see if you can hear them aren’t you?" Brendon’s mouth twists into a knowing smirk, "You’re such a pervert, Spencer Smith."

Spencer really hadn’t considered the fact that the door to the back lounge doesn’t quite shut properly so, yes, if he goes to his bunk he will be able to hear them, but he’s committed himself to walking in that direction now and if he turns back it will look like Brendon is right. "Shut up, am not. I just... I’m gonna try and get a couple hours more sleep. I have, like, a headache and I feel kind of sick and..." Spencer lets his sentence trail off and tries his best to look like he’s in pain.

His act must be working because Brendon’s smile drops down a couple of notches from ‘evil thoughts’ to ‘concerned friend’ and he says, "Hey, there’s some Advil in my bunk if you want it."

There’s something about Brendon when he’s being all sincere and worried that never fails to throw Spencer’s delicate sense of balance out of whack. It’s stupid really, because Brendon’s one of the most kind-hearted people Spencer has ever met, so him being thoughtful shouldn’t come as a great surprise. But somehow it always does, like maybe Spencer just doesn’t expect that thoughtfulness to be directed his way, which is stupid because why wouldn’t it be?

It’s not like he and Brendon aren’t friends so why wouldn’t Brendon offer him pills if he has a headache, or backrubs when his shoulders are sore from drumming, or save him the last muffin in the morning when Spencer oversleeps and doesn’t crawl out of his bunk before Ryan has eaten just about everything in sight. It doesn’t mean anything and it shouldn’t throw him like it does, and the fact that right now it is means that Spencer is probably more tired than he thought and the best cure for that is more sleep. Spencer really hopes he remembered to charge his iPod.

 

*

 

Spencer didn’t charge his iPod. Which sucks. And not in the good way. Because it means that he has to lie in his bunk and listen to roughly an hour of creaking couch springs, muffled conversations and not-so-muffled moaning, and on one occasion Ryan saying, "Fuck, Jon, your _mouth_ , why did we wait so long to do this" in a breathy, high-pitched voice that would be amusing if Spencer wasn’t so close to storming the back lounge and asking the pair of them if they could just do whatever it is they’re doing a little more quietly, for the love of god, please.

Finally, _finally_ it all goes quiet and Spencer is thinking he might just be able to fall back to sleep when the curtain to his bunk is pulled aside and Ryan says, "Hey"

Spencer makes a non-committal noise in response but he doesn’t bother opening his eyes because he’d not really in the mood to talk to Ryan right now; he just wants to get some sleep.

Ryan makes a noise of his own; the frustrated almost growly one that Spencer knows means Ryan’s feeling defensive and unsure of himself. "Brendon says you’re pissed at me."

Spencer sighs to himself. Then he opens his eyes and props himself up on one elbow. "I’m not pissed at you, Ry. I just have a headache."

"Oh, do you need anything?" Ryan sounds relieved. He leans a little further in to Spencer’s bunk and makes a vague attempt at smoothing the hair away from Spencer’s face, or maybe Ryan is trying to see if he has a temperature, Spencer isn’t really sure what Ryan thinks he’s doing but whatever it is, it’s annoying. Spencer bats at Ryan’s hand and shakes his head ‘no’.

Ryan stares at him for a moment like he’s trying to tell if Spencer is lying, then he nods like he’s satisfied and starts pulling the curtain back across the front of Spencer’s bunk. Spencer’s about to launch into a chorus of hallelujahs in his head when Ryan pauses, takes a deep breath and says. "Oh and by the way, Jon and I might have hooked up. And by might have I mean we did. And we’re going to again. Maybe a lot. Just so you know."

Ryan is grinning. Like ‘Pete Wentz wants to sign us’ grinning and there’s no way Spencer is going to do anything to make that stop any time soon. Because the opposite of Ryan grinning is him moping about, sighing heavily and writing songs about people being whores. And no one wants to go through that again. Least of all Spencer.

"Hey that’s great man, tell Jon I’ll kill him slowly and painfully and hide his body where no one will ever find it if he screws up, yeah?"

Ryan grins some more then wanders off, presumably to find Jon.

Spencer rolls on to his side so he’s facing the wall, pulls his pillow over his ears and tries not to think about the fact that the last time he had sex was so long ago he thinks they might have changed how it’s done.

 

*

 

The problem is, Ryan and Jon go from dancing round each other in a will-they won’t-they dance of much neverendingness to sickeningly happy old married couple in the space of two extended sessions in the back lounge and one hotel night. Spencer figures it has something to do with the, quite literally, years of build up and awkward flirting that have led up to this point, but also, he’s thinking his breakfast, okay fine, brunch, is about to make a reappearance, because, honestly, there’s cute and in love and then there’s sickeningly sweet. And in the relationships as confectionery scale, Jon and Ryan are the gooey center of a Twinkie.

Plus, now that Ryan has found happiness he’s become one of those really fucking annoying people who think that anyone not in the throes of true love (or who isn’t at least getting laid on a regular basis) must be wasting away from the pining and that he, Ryan Ross, is their bizarrely dressed fairy godfather of love.

Which is why, somewhere between five and an infinite number of times a day, Spencer finds himself being pulled into the nearest available, semi-hidden place with Ryan’s arm round his shoulder and Ryan pointing out a random person and asking what Spencer thinks of them.

Or being shoved towards a confused looking tech or sound guy or member of hotel staff from whatever city they’re playing that night while Ryan says something ridiculous like, "Oh hey, Spence, this is Vladimir he likes taking long walks in the park and building model airplanes. Do you remember that plane you made when we were kids, we flew that in a park. You guys should talk." And then Ryan walks off looking pleased with himself and Spencer is left to apologize to the latest victim of Ryan’s Get Spencer Laid scheme. And later Ryan will look at him sadly, usually while draped over Jon’s lap and say wistful things like, "I wish you’d just given Vladimir a chance, you two could have had something special."

And Spencer will be forced to point out that Vladimir lives in Azerbaijan, speaks roughly four words of English and is highly unlikely to want to embark on a long distance love affair with a guy half his age who lives in Vegas. Mainly because Vladimir is in fact married with four kids, as straight as they come and only wandered into the hotel lobby to get directions to the nearest swimming pool.

To which Ryan will say something like ‘love knows no distance’ or ‘marriage is just an institution designed to keep people from being who they really are’, spend fifteen minutes earnestly explaining that ‘swimming pool’ is actually a metaphor for true love and then end by patting Spencer’s arm in a supposedly soothing manner and saying, ‘I just want you to be as happy as I am’ and then he and Jon will stare at each other in a sappy manner and proceed to make out for how ever long it takes them to get to the next venue.

Spencer wonders how long he would have to serve in prison if he strangled Ryan with one of his stupid scarves and if it would be worth it for the satisfaction it would bring him. He thinks it probably would be, after all, he could always get a degree while he was in prison and then, when he’s paid his debt to society, he could get that nice, sensible office job he keeps dreaming about.

And then, just when Spencer thinks it can’t get any worse and that Ryan’s matchmaking has reached its peak with the whole ‘accidentally’ locking him in a storage closet with the lead singer of their support band, Ryan comes up to him after a show, hands him a beer and says, "I’ve been going about it all wrong. I’ve been trying to match you up with strangers and, you, Spencer, are not a strangers kind of guy. The answer is obvious. You and Brendon should hook up. Then we can all go on double dates."

Ryan looks ecstatic, likes he’s found a solution to a really tricky problem that’s been bugging him for ages. Spencer, on the other hand, doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because, seriously, it’s like the universe is conspiring against him and refusing to let him forget about the fact that, okay, yes, he did maybe have a bit of a crush on Brendon when he first met him. And by bit of a crush Spencer means, huge, potentially life-changing crush that nearly drove him insane with the questions it raised in his mind. But the thing is, as soon as it looked like they were actually going to go somewhere with the band and it wasn’t just going to be something they did to pass the time at the weekends hidden away in Spencer’s grandma’s garage, right then Spencer decided that the band was way more important than any crush he might have so he made himself forget about it.

But recently it’s gotten harder to do, because the truth is those feeling never really went away. And somewhere along the line, around the time that Ryan and Jon started hanging out together more and more often and dancing around each other in a song-writing as courtship kind of a way, Spencer started spending more of his time with Brendon than he ever had before and all the thoughts and questions and confusion he’d thought he’d oh so carefully hidden away had started to creep into sight again. And the absolute last thing that Spencer needs right now is for Ryan to get it into his head that Spencer should do something about them. Because Spencer was happy with his not dealing with things, or he was content at least, and he’d like to stay that way and carry on not dealing and ignoring and packing things away in boxes in his mind thank you very much.

 

*

 

Spencer’s noticed there’s been a lot more casual semi-nudity since Jon and Ryan started fucking. Like somehow Brendon’s sartorial choices have become the default for three quarters of the band. Right now, for example, Jon is walking through from the bunks on his way to the kitchenette clad in nothing but a pair of boxers and a smug grin. Plus Jon has sex hair and how does someone with hair as short as Jon even manage to have visible sex hair? That’s just weird and a pretty damn mad skill on Jon’s part.

Spencer files it away with all the other things that sometimes make him wonder if Jon’s an alien or some kind of superhero or possibly an alien superhero. Like the way Jon can locate the nearest Starbucks simply by standing in the parking lot of a venue and looking around for a minute or two (Brendon swears he’s seen Jon sniffing the air like a tracker dog, Spencer is inclined to believe him) or charm even the stuffiest, most uptight hotel concierge into forgoing the extra cleaning and/or damage costs whenever Brendon decides he’s bored and what would really liven things up is a food fight or Ryan is overtaken with the desire to turn a bedspread into a ‘fetching’ or even ‘jaunty’ vest and hatband set. Which usually involves a pair of nail scissors, lots of swearing and very little actual making of any vests and/or hatbands.

Spencer watches Jon foraging in the refrigerator for a moment or two then nudges Brendon, who’s sprawled out on the floor in front of him doing a crossword, with his foot.

"If you were a superhero what would your special power be?"

Brendon hems and haws for maybe a little too long, like it’s a really tough decision on a really serious topic, then his eyes go wide and he raises his fist in victory.

"The power of awesome. I would beat evil doers into submission through sheer awe."

Jon snorts as he walks back towards the bunks with a coffee in one hand and a can of diet coke in the other, which he tucks under his arm just so he can ruffle a hand in Brendon’s hair, saying, "Sorry dude, that power’s already taken."

Brendon looks a little crestfallen but nods in agreement, "’s true, you are awesome, Jon Walker."

"Damn right I am." Jon wanders off back to the bunks with his sex hair and his semi-nudity and his smug grin.

Spencer watches him until the door swings shut then asks Brendon, "Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me? There are lots of things you could be talking about. Global warming for example, that definitely bothers me. I mean, imagine all those penguins in the Antarctic with no snow to have their babies on. That would be tragic."

"Wha… how did we end up talking about penguins?"

"You asked me if something bothered me and I told you what did."

"Oh. I was talking about..." there’s a muffled thump then a moan from the bunks, and Spencer nods his head towards where it came from, "that."

"Eh, that doesn’t bother me. Well apart from the fact that the back lounge is now a no go zone most of the time but there’s only a couple of dates left on the tour so I am willing to forego my back lounge time if it means not having to put up with a repeat of Ryan being a moody bitch like he was that day we suggested banning sex on the bus. And anyway, why would it bother me? You know, except for the obvious thing that if they crash and burn the band will probably break up because they both suck at staying friends with their exes."

Spencer hadn’t thought of that and as soon as he does his stomach twists in a new and frightening way. "Please don’t say things like that."

"Sorry."

Spencer’s about to say something, anything, to change the subject when Ryan pokes his head out from the bunks and says, "Oh hey you might want to steer clear of the back lounge for say half an hour. Wait, make that an hour. Also, do we still have that whipped cream?"

Once Ryan has wandered off with his whipped cream and his disturbingly wicked smile, Spencer thinks about climbing into his bunk and trying to sleep. He picked up some heavy duty earplugs at their last stop so if he’s lucky he’ll miss out on hearing anything that might filter through from the back lounge.

He’s about to stand up and go brush his teeth when Brendon asks, "So does it bother you?"

"What, global warming?" Spencer knows that’s not what Brendon meant, but.

Brendon laughs and ducks his head like he thinks he maybe deserves that then says, "No, you know what I mean, Ryan and Jon, does it bother you?"

Spencer thinks about it for a moment, and honestly, "No, not really, I mean they seem happy and I think they’re both sensible enough to know if it would screw with the band, it’s jus..."

"Just what, Spence? Come on, you can tell me, I promise I won’t breathe a word, is there some deep dark secret I should know? Is Ryan secretly an alien who’s only got one year left on Earth before he has to go back to his own planet and leave poor Jon heartbroken and alone? Or wait, he’s a robot isn’t he? I knew it! You can’t hide the truth any more, Spence, enquiring minds want to know."

"No, nothing like that." Spencer can’t help but laugh at the way Brendon’s face falls at the lack of gossip. "It’s just, you know, all the sex, like having to deal with it all the time and, well, not having any of it of my own."

Brendon’s eyes flare wide and he nods vigorously in agreement. "I know what you mean. The last time I had sex was so long ago I think it’s probably changed by now. You know, got all futuristic and exciting and I’m missing out."

"Yeah that, exactly that." Spencer thinks it’s so unfair that everyone else is having exciting, futuristic sex and he’s having exactly none. "Like I’m happy for them but do they really have to flaunt the fact that they’re getting some quite as much as they do?"

"You know," Brendon is chewing on his thumbnail as he talks and Spencer has to try really hard not to stare at the way Brendon drags his thumb across his lip as he does it, "we could always do something about our mutual frustration."

Spencer’s stomach does this weird flippy thing that it hasn’t done in years. He’s kind of proud of the way he manages to sound mildly disinterested when he says, "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" Brendon’s on the verge of bouncing, Spencer can tell by the way he’s getting all twitchy and excited. "You and me, together, we should do something."

"Like what?" Spencer is not thinking thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking, he isn’t.

"Yeah, totally, like we should ask Zack if he can find a club or something in the next city and then we can have a wild night out and find us some action. What do you say, Spence, will you be my wingman? I’ll totally be yours."

And just like that Spencer is back to wanting to crawl into his bunk and go to sleep, maybe until the tour is over.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he never, ever had sex again. There are plenty of people in the world who aren’t getting laid on a regular basis, some of them even by choice. Spencer wonders if telling Ryan he’s found religion and taken a vow of celibacy will stop the frantic matchmaking. Probably not, but it’s worth a try.

 

*

 

Spencer wakes up in a cold sweat, blinking as he flails a hand out to find the reading light in his bunk to turn it on. Because he has that childhood, light will scare the monsters away if I can just find it thing going on in his head.

Tonight's dream was the encyclopedia selling one, which, not an issue, he knows how that one goes, but when the door of the house opened it was Brendon standing there, smiling at him in a vaguely leery way and striking ridiculous poses that Spencer's guessing were supposed to be all come hither, and, honestly, Spencer’s subconscious mind would have been more than happy for there to be plenty of hithering especially if coming was involved, except for the fact that he, Brendon, was wearing a requisite to bad porn baby doll night dress complete with feather trim and a huge over-sized blonde wig with curlers in it. And that, that is weird and wrong and fucked up on so many levels that Spencer doesn't even want to start trying to consider what it says about the state of his mental health.

Because even now with the light on and the dream fading in his mind, Spencer is maybe a little more turned on than he should be by the idea of Brendon in a baby doll nightdress. Which means it’s probably time for him to give up on sleeping for a while and possibly mainline all the coffee on the bus, just in case the dream comes back again.

Spencer pulls the curtain of his bunk back just in time to see Brendon climbing his way into the bunk across the aisle. All he can really see is Brendon’s ass and his hairy legs, but Spencer’s mind oh so helpfully superimposes a layer of satin and a feather trim over the reality of what’s in front of him.

Spencer squeezes his eyes tight shut and pulls the curtain back into place as fast as he can. He is so ready for the tour to be over. So, so very ready.

 

*

Spencer doesn’t dream as much when they’re not on the road and when he does it tends to be about really boring everyday things like going to the grocery store to buy milk or sitting around playing Wii with Brendon. He figures it’s because of the fact that when he’s at home he sleeps, like really sleeps, long and deep and good and waking up feeling refreshed and ready for the day sleeps. Not like the sleep he gets on the bus which is half-assed and shallow and never really leaves him feeling anything other than tired when he wakes up.

There’s too much noise on the bus for him to relax properly: other people moving about and talking or writing songs at 4am, and the noise of the bus and the air conditioning and the road. It’s not much better when they have hotel nights because Spencer is always really conscious of there being another person in the room, not in a creepy they’re watching him way or anything but in the way that his mind always stays a little too alert, waiting to push him awake if there’s any noise of unhappiness or discomfort.

On hotel nights it’s like he’s gone back in time to when Ryan used turn up on Spencer’s doorstep all hunched in on himself but with this determined-to-not-talk-about-it look on his face and Spencer would lie awake waiting for it to crumble and Ryan to crawl into his bed with him. Or when Brendon first moved out and they would camp out on his ratty sofa and make up bullshit excuses about why it was too late to go home just so Brendon wouldn’t have to be there alone. And Spencer would spend nights and nights in a row half-awake ready to listen to Brendon when the ‘what the fuck have I done, I can’t do this’ moment came or calm Ryan down when he got an attack of the guilts because Brendon had turned his back on his family for the band and, "what if he changes his mind, what if I’m not a good enough song writer to make it worth all this?"

But at home, all alone in his house in his big oh so comfortable bed wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets with the air conditioning turned up high to counteract the fact that even in the middle of the summer Spencer still likes to feel the weight of way too many blankets above and around him, Spencer sleeps and doesn’t dream.

Except that now he does dream. All the time. Constant technicolor visions swirling through his brain at a million miles an hour but still just slow enough that he can remember what they were about in the morning. Which is good because there’s nothing worse than waking up hard and not knowing why. Or maybe, Spencer thinks, maybe there is. Maybe waking up hard because he’s been dreaming about fucking one of his best friends is worse. And maybe dreaming about sitting with said best friend and giving a running commentary while watching his two other best friends fucking, complete with weird camera angles and a seventies funk soundtrack, is way, way worse than not knowing what he’s been dreaming about that has him waking up so turned on it only takes the slightest touch before he’s gasping for breath and coming so hard he sees stars.

 

*

 

Spencer gets woken up from a nice dream about working for an accountancy firm by what sounds like someone leaning on his doorbell, so he’s not in the best of moods when he opens the door to find Ryan and Jon standing there holding bags that look suspiciously like they contain towels and shower gel.

He’s even less amused when Ryan smiles his best ‘you’re my best friend in the whole wide world’ smile and says, "So, hey, um, can we borrow a cup of shower?"

"Again? Seriously, Ry, you have to start paying your bills on time." Spencer is beginning to think Ryan does the not paying bills thing on purpose. Like he thinks it makes him more bohemian or interesting in a crazy artistic way. Which it really, really doesn’t.

Ryan just shrugs and says, "We were on tour, I didn’t know it was due."

At the same time as Jon says, "It would probably help if he actually opened his mail."

"You live there as well now, Walker, please don’t tell me you inhabit the same world as Ryan does where bills magically pay themselves and all household utilities are free. Plus if you saw the bills you could have at least opened them or something." Spencer really has no idea how he ended up stuck with the two most useless examples of adulthood in the universe as band mates. He must have been so very evil in a past life.

"Nah," Jon makes a face, "It’s like illegal to open other people’s mail. Plus, you know, when I’m in Chicago I live with my parents because I never really got around to getting my own apartment, so bills do magically pay themselves as far as I’m concerned. Also, first shower!"

"Dude," Ryan punches Jon on the arm, "you cannot claim first shower, we’re not on tour now."

"We walked from your place to Spencer’s I figure that counts as being on tour." Jon leans in a little closer to Ryan and stage whispers in his ear, "Or did you want to share?"

"Yeah, that’s not happening at my house." Spencer holds up his hands to show he means business. "I have two bathrooms and two showers so you can both go first but when you’re done we are sitting down and having a conversation about the concept of responsible adulthood."

"Thanks, mom." Ryan kisses Spencer on the cheek as he walks by. "And then when you’re done we can talk about how you’re going to die old and unloved, because you won’t take my advice and jump Brendon’s bones."

Spencer sometimes wonders why Ryan is his best friend, no really, why?

"Shut the fuck up and go take a shower."

 

*

 

Spencer is sure there was something really important he needed to talk to Ryan about. Something about responsibility maybe? Or something about Ryan keeping his nose out of Spencer’s love life? Or was it something about Ryan reading his mail. Wait, has Ryan been stealing Spencer’s mail and reading it? That’s just wrong. Spencer reaches out and smacks Ryan on the head in retaliation for his mail stealing ways.

Ryan has the decency to look guilty, and to pass Spencer the joint he’s totally been hogging which, hey, joint, excellent.

And there’s another thing Spencer can’t quite seem to remember right now. "Tell me again why we’re sitting in my car in my garage? I have, like, chairs and stuff inside we could be sitting on, it’s not like my couches bite."

"I once made out with a girl who liked to bite." Jon’s eyes have a glazed, far-away look about them like he’s reliving some moment from the dim distant past, or like he’s really, really stoned. Either/or. It’s always hard to tell with Jon. Spencer squirms a little in his seat, trying to shift so that he can look at Jon from a better angle but there’s not a great deal of space so he kind of ends up with his feet hanging half in the air and his knees resting on Ryan’s thighs.

"Kinky!" Brendon’s face appears over the top of the front seat of the car and from where Spencer’s sitting it looks like his head is floating in the air not attached to a body. Like the Cheshire Cat, Spencer thinks, nodding his head in agreement when Brendon grins insanely wide to complete the mental image.

But, wait, when did Brendon get here anyway? Spencer is sure he would remember Brendon showing up but he doesn’t, which is worrying. Spencer wonders if all the weird dreams and his inability to keep track of who’s in his house and who isn’t maybe add up to him beginning to lose his grip on reality.

"We’re all mad here," Spencer mutters to no one in particular, then punches Ryan in the arm for the fact that he’s thinking about Alice In Wonderland at all. Or maybe it was Tom Waits he was thinking about. Either way it’s Ryan’s fault, so.

Ryan pats Spencer’s knee absentmindedly then asks Jon, "So was it hot?"

"What?"

"The biting?"

"Oh yeah, no, not really." Jon pauses and does the thinking thing again, "It kinda hurt. She kept, like, biting my tongue every time I stuck it in her mouth."

Ryan tilts his head to the side like he’s trying to work something out. "So why did you keep doing it?"

Jon shrugs. "I was fourteen and she had great tits, I thought if I made out with her for long enough she’d let me touch them."

“Did she?”

"No." Jon makes his best attempt at looking sad and woeful.

Spencer sniggers to himself then looks at Jon. "Sucks to be you."

"I had a dream once where I had tits. It was _awesome_." Brendon reappears over the front seat, still grinning like the Cheshire Cat, "I’d totally let you touch my tits if you made out with me."

"Thanks, man, I appreciate that." Jon grins at Brendon, Brendon grins back. Spencer grins as well because it turns out that grinning is contagious.

"I think it would be hot." Ryan is tapping his finger against his chin like he does when he’s contemplating lyrics or the meaning of life, or what to have for supper.

"Brendon having tits?" Jon sounds confused, and maybe a little worried.

"No! That would be..." Ryan scrunches his face in disgust and Brendon pouts then cups his hands against his chest like he’s imaging breasts there. "I mean the biting thing."

"It really wasn’t. C’mere," Jon makes grabby hands at Ryan. "I’ll show you."

There really, really isn’t enough room on the back seat of Spencer’s car for Jon to demonstrate his weird kissing experience to Ryan without Spencer _having_ to watch. Because they’re right there beside him and even if he looks away, like out of the window maybe, he can still hear them. Plus the inside of his garage is kind of boring and Spencer’s feeling not entirely sober and easily distracted by things like tongues and the tiny flashes of Jon’s teeth he keeps catching out of the corner of his eye. Spencer wishes Brendon would pop back up over the front seat again so he’d have something to focus on that isn’t Jon and Ryan and their sloppy, noisy making out.

Suddenly Ryan pushes Jon away and says something that might be, "Ow." But it’s hard for Spencer to tell because Ryan is holding the tip of his tongue with his fingers and scrunching his face up in pain.

"See," Jon says smugly, "Totally not hot. Imagine that for like an hour. I was talking funny for days."

"You already talk funny."

"Your mom talks funny."

Spencer would join in with the ‘your mom’ fun but there’s still one thing that’s really confusing him. "No, really, why are we sitting in my car?"

"Dude." Brendon appears again, still all smiley and Brendon-like. Spencer is maybe really glad to see him. He missed Brendon for the five minutes he was gone. "It was your idea. You wanted to see if we could hotbox it."

"Oh yeah." Spencer remembers now. "Heh. We totally did."

"We’re awesome." Brendon agrees with a vigorous nod of his head and a fist pump in the air.

Ryan pouts and says, "My tongue hurts."

Jon presses his finger against Ryan’s bottom lip like he’s trying to soothe the hurt. "Want me to kiss it better?"

Ryan nods. "No teeth though."

"No teeth. What?" Jon holds up his hands when Ryan looks like he doesn’t believe him, "I promise, scout’s honor."

"You got kicked out of the scouts, you can’t use that as a promise."

"Okay, fine," Jon pauses for a moment then says, "I promise on all the future first born children of this band."

Spencer decides not to point out that if they carry on the way they’re going there won’t be any first born, or second born, of any number of born. Unless medical science advances to the point where men can have babies. Which he really hopes it doesn’t because the idea of Ryan under the influence of pregnancy hormones is too terrifying to consider. He’d make them his slaves and refuse to leave the chaise lounge that he’d buy purely for the purposes of lying artily across for the full nine months. Spencer would have to leave the country, change his name and go into hiding in a small village in the Amazon, just to get out of being forced to rub Ryan’s back when it ached or massage his swollen ankles, and… Spencer is maybe getting a bit hysterical.

He focuses back on the here and now just in time to see Ryan and Jon start kissing again. This time it’s slow and intent and bordering on really fucking dirty and Spencer can see tongue and open mouths and Ryan’s teeth tugging at Jon’s bottom lip and Jon’s hand is already travelling down Ryan’s chest so he can cup Ryan’s dick through his pants and Ryan’s hand is curled round Jon’s neck and he’s starting to lean back against Spencer and pull Jon down as well and Jon’s thumb is running up and down Ryan’s zipper and any minute now Spencer is sure that zipper is coming down and then it will be Ryan’s dick and Jon’s hand or maybe Jon’s mouth and, fuck, Spencer really hopes it’s Jon’s mouth and, what the fuck? When did he get interested in watching his friends fucking? Because Spencer isn’t he really, really isn’t. It’s just that right now he feels weird and disconnected and like maybe he fell asleep somewhere and all this is just one of his dreams. All it needs is for Brendon to be sitting beside him, eating popcorn and critiquing Ryan and Jon’s technique.

Spencer closes his eyes and wills himself to wake up. But he can still hear the sound of Jon and Ryan kissing and feel Ryan pressed against him which means either he’s stuck in this particular dream till it ends, or, he’s already awake and he’s sitting in his car with his eyes squeezed shut like a freak. While his friends make out as though he isn’t there. So maybe he’s invisible, like somewhere between the first joint and the however-the-fuck-many they smoked he just blinked out of existence, possibly in a puff of smoke. It’s hard to tell, there’s a lot of smoke in the car.

Spencer cautiously opens one eye, then shuts it again and opens the other one instead, just in case, because there’s maybe some left brain/right brain, left eye/right eye thing floating around in Spencer’s head. Like maybe reality only exists in the right side of his head, that’s the rational side, or at least he thinks maybe it is or it might be the left and… fuck it, Spencer stops with the weird kind of slow winking thing he’s doing and just opens both his eyes.

Ryan and Jon don’t seem to have progressed much further with the zipper thing, which is good, and if he can just get it together enough to slide his hand along the door until he finds the handle then maybe Spencer can get out of the car and go somewhere, anywhere that isn’t here.

Except, except… Brendon. Brendon is staring and his eyes are wide and dark and there’s this little crescent of white against the red where Brendon’s teeth are pressing into his lip and Spencer wants to trace it with his finger, no no, with his tongue. Yeah, Spencer wants to crawl forward and lick the white away, see if it tastes different just there, like maybe that little line on Brendon’s lip will taste hotter or maybe cooler than everything around it and Spencer wants to twist his fingers into Brendon’s hair and make Brendon look at him with those wide, dark eyes and Christ he needs to get out of here right fucking now.

Spencer scrabbles for the door handle and manages to yank it open but he has to grab onto the seat beside Brendon to stop himself from falling backwards out of the car. Brendon turns to look at him and his pupils are so, so blown and Brendon’s smiling again but this time it’s wicked and his voice sounds rough when he says, "Dude, they’re just getting to the good bit."

"I can’t... I have to go." Spencer desperately tries to think of a reason to leave that doesn’t have anything to do with wanting to jump Brendon’s bones. "I have to walk the dogs, I forgot earlier and..."

Spencer is painfully aware that _that_ is possibly the lamest excuse ever and it totally looks like he’s running away. Which, oh hey, he is.

But Brendon doesn’t call him on it, he just shrugs and says, "Suit yourself, I’m staying right here."

 

*

 

The thing is, Spencer’s always thought of himself as straight, carefully ignored crushes on Brendon notwithstanding. Okay, yeah, he’s maybe looked at a guy or two (or three or four or okay, fine, so he’s lost count, whatever) before and thought they were hot and that maybe, just maybe, he’d consider making out with them or something. If he had the option to do so. Which he never has.

And he’s definitely jerked off thinking about Johnny Depp, but, like, who hasn’t, so that totally doesn’t count. And maybe Antonio Banderas in that really early Spanish film that he spends a lot of his time in on his back getting fucked by the director guy, but Spencer’s pretty sure Banderas falls into the same category as Depp so, again, it doesn’t count.

Also, he really needs to get his DVDs back from Brendon.

But, what he’s never done is actually make out with another guy, or even try to figure out what kind of pick up line would work if he ever got the opportunity to use one. And Spencer is a firm believer in actions meaning more than words, or in his case, thoughts, and he’s never acted on any of his vaguely homoerotic thoughts (okay, except for the jerking off, but that does. not. count) so in his head he’s, yeah, straight.

But maybe he’s thinking now that he’s not entirely straight, like he’s maybe ten percent gay or something. Or maybe more, maybe more like thirty percent. Or eighty percent straight, twenty gay and ten bi-curious, which fine adds up to more than a hundred but whatever, it’s his sexual identity crisis and if the math doesn’t add up then who the fuck cares, not Spencer that’s for sure.

"Oh god, my sexual identity crisis goes up to eleven."

Spencer is glad there’s only Boba and Milo around to hear him admit to that. It actually sounds even dumber when he says it out loud than it did in his head.

Milo stares at him for a while then stands up, turns in a circle and lies down again, Boba doesn’t even show that much interest, he just cracks an eye open for a second or two then goes back to sleep. Spencer wonders idly if his life would make more sense if he were a dog.

Because the truth is, if he thinks about naked guys in general then, yeah, nothing happens, not even a twitch of interest. So maybe it’s actually only like one percent or something. But if he closes his eyes and thinks about naked Brendon, or more specifically, naked Brendon on his knees looking up at him through his eyelashes with his mouth stretched wide around Spencer’s dick, then Spencer goes from disinterested to hard as a proverbial nail in about the length of time it takes imaginary naked Brendon to raise an eyebrow and smile. So statistically Spencer is maybe one hundred percent gay for Brendon. Fuck.

 

*

 

One of the things Spencer has always been good at is solving other people’s problems. His own though, not so much. But that’s mainly because he’s never really had that many problems that actually required solving. All of his problems have been kind of small and insignificant and the kind of things that just go away on their own if he waits long enough. But somehow he thinks this _thing_ with Brendon isn’t going to do that, because if he’s honest with himself then he’s been ignoring it for years and really it hasn’t gone away like he thought it would.

Normally what he’d do is list all the pros and cons of the situation and then work out what to do based on which column turns out the longest. But Spencer’s not entirely sure exactly what his problem is or how many actual problems he has to deal with, because there’s kind of a lot of issues in play. There’s the ‘how will it effect the band’ thing, and the ‘will it fuck up my friendship with Brendon and if so is it worth it’ thing, and the ‘does Brendon even like me back’ thing and, possibly more importantly, there’s the ‘dudes: check yes or no’ thing. Which adds up to a lot of lists and a lot of time spent writing them when he could just be doing something less thinky and more actiony. Plus the way Spencer’s seeing things at the moment he’s pretty sure he’ll just end up with a cons list as long as his arm and a pros list that just has one thing on it. But that one thing is ‘Brendon’ and, yeah, in Spencer’s mind that carries a lot more weight than a million petty worries do.

And now Spencer is thinking that maybe the time has come for him to stop making lists in his head and stop packing things away in imaginary closets and just man up and face his problem head on. Because once upon a time Spencer was a take charge, let’s fix this shit kind of a guy and he’s beginning to feel like an idiot for the way he’s been acting lately. But Spencer would still kind of like to talk to someone who’d understand what he’s going through at the moment, someone who’s been through it and lived to tell the tale. The only problem is, the one person Spencer can think of to talk to is the same person he’s so confused about. So maybe Spencer just needs to kill two birds with one phone call.

Which is how he finds himself lying on his couch on the phone to Brendon asking, "So, like, how old were you when you realized you were gay?"

Brendon, to his credit, doesn’t ask why Spencer wants to know or get all defensive and weird about the question, he just says, "Um, 15 maybe, 16? Something like that, I didn’t do anything about it till I was like 19 or 20 though. But I’m only gay on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. And on Fridays in months with an R in the name."

"What about the rest of the week?"

"Tuesdays I’m straight, Thursdays, bi-curious, Fridays May through August I like to dress up in a gorilla suit and go freak out tourists on the strip, unless we’re on tour, in which case I’m open to all offers. And Sunday is a day of rest. No fucking on the Lord’s day."

"Really?" Spencer takes the phone away from his ear and stares at it for a moment. "Like never?"

"Well, I could probably be convinced." Brendon goes quiet for a moment, then asks, "So, hey, why the sudden interest in my sexuality anyway?" in the same kind of tone of voice he uses to ask about the weather, like it’s perfectly normal for Spencer to call him up and ask about his sexual preferences.

Spencer wishes he had Brendon’s calm, he used to have that kind of calm, he’s sure of it. All he has now is a jittery feeling in his stomach and an embarrassing shake in his voice when he answers. "Oh, you know, no reason, I was just thinking about... stuff."

There’s noise on the other end of the phone, muffled like Brendon’s got his hand over the mouthpiece, but then Brendon’s loud and clear again when he asks, "Like what kind of stuff."

Spencer takes a deep breath. He figures if he says what he has to say quick enough then maybe Brendon won’t catch all of it, but that won’t matter because Spencer will have said it and that’s the plan, so. "Oh, you know, like how I am maybe not quite as straight as I thought I was kind of stuff. So, hey, wanna come over and watch porn?"

Brendon of course does catch it all, or at least Spencer figures Brendon caught the big, important parts anyway because there’s a moment of silence and then he says, "Is it gay porn?"

Spencer pulls a cushion over his face because, god, this is way more embarrassing to do than he thought it would be, but at least he’s on his own and Brendon’s not actually here to see how red Spencer’s getting. Which is a plus. "Yes, Brendon, it’s gay porn. All cocks, all the time. Because apparently I maybe like the cock and you like the cock so I thought we could sit and enjoy looking at cocks together."

Brendon doesn’t say anything for what feels like the longest time. Spencer’s seriously considering making out that he’s joking just so Brendon will speak again, because silence, it turns out, is really uncomfortable. But just as Spencer’s working up a really good fake laugh Brendon asks, "Are you trying to seduce me, Spencer Smith?"

"Um, maybe?" To be honest, Spencer isn’t all that sure himself, but, "Is it working at all?"

"No, yeah, totally." Brendon’s smiling, Spencer can hear it in his voice. "And for the record, saying hey B’den let’s get naked and sweaty would have worked a whole lot better."

"Really?" Spencer puts the cushion back where he grabbed it from. "I’ll try and remember that."

"Sure," Brendon laughs. "I’ll be there in ten. Want me to bring snacks?"

"Cheetos." Spencer may have ulterior motives involving licking orange cheese dust off his fingers in what he hopes is a sexy way.

"‘Kay. In that case I need to go to the store so I’ll be there in half an hour."

 

*

 

When Spencer opens his door it’s to Brendon standing there wearing his classic 'oops?' expression and Jon and Ryan standing behind him, looking by turns mildly embarrassed and not-so-mildly annoyed. Ryan pushes his way through and then past Spencer, very pointedly not saying a word in that way he’s had since they were kids that actually is him saying, "I am angry and hurt and disappointed and I intend to prove this to you by sitting in a corner, refusing to speak and glaring at you until you beg for my forgiveness".

Brendon, on the other hand, starts babbling nonsense as soon as he’s inside. Totally inane stuff about the weather and the dog they saw on the ride over and did Spencer decorate since he was last here because something looks different and, oh hey, did he mention that Jon and Ryan were over at his place when Spencer called because they were, and Spencer pretty much tunes him out right away. Because if Brendon is babbling it means he’s nervous and Brendon being nervous is making Spencer even more nervous than he was already. Spencer is beginning to think this whole facing up to things idea of his was a dumb one. Like possibly the stupidest idea he has ever had, and Spencer has had some really stupid ideas over the years.

Spencer is also beginning to think that Jon had the right idea when he walked straight through into Spencer’s kitchen, opened the sliding doors and announced he’d be outside if anyone needed him. Spencer isn’t sure if he exactly needs Jon right now, but he is sure that he needs to get the hell away from Ryan and his silence and Brendon and his babbling, so he says something vague about getting a drink, walks into his kitchen and just keeps walking.

Jon is sitting on the grass, leaning back on his hands and staring at the sky. He looks all content and Jon-like and Spencer, not for the first time, wonders what it must be like to be as calm and mellow as Jon is most of the time. Like maybe Jon should write a book about it, impart his wisdom to the masses so that all the stressed out people in the world can get a little of the Walker magic. He could call it ‘Zen and the Art of Flip-flop Wearing’, it would be an instant best-seller and Oprah would feature it on her book club segment every week for a month.

Spencer starts laughing to himself at the thought of Oprah trying to get any sense out of Jon in an interview situation. Spencer would pay good money to see that, he should maybe call Pete and put the idea of a range of DecayDance self-help books in his head and see what happens.

Of course it could just be the contact high that makes being round Jon so calming, Spencer thinks that’s actually probably more likely, but whatever it is, it works, because Spencer feels way better than he did before he came outside.

Jon leans back a little further and he must spot Spencer standing by the door because he smiles and sits up straight so he can wave Spencer over. Spencer walks across to where Jon is sitting, drops down next to him and asks, "How’s the merging of households going?"

"Eh." Jon does the fifty-fifty hand waggling thing. "As well as can be expected. Hobo’s chewed through five pairs of my flip flops, Dylan’s annexed the couch and is pretty much refusing to leave it or let anyone sit on it and Clover is staging some kind of dirty protest with hairballs. It’s pretty gross. I’m pretty sure Clover’ll be bald soon because, seriously, no cat has that much fur to hack up on a daily basis."

"Maybe it’s being shipped in through care packages from Chicago."

"What like an underground movement set up to liberate kitties who’ve been forced to move to the desert? You know, it wouldn’t surprise me. There’s been a shifty looking black cat hanging out in Ryan’s backyard a lot recently. Maybe that’s the leader of the resistance come to check up on how the glorious revolution is coming along."

"Your backyard." Spencer points out.

Jon looks confused. "Huh?"

"It’s not just Ryan’s backyard any more, it’s both of yours."

"Oh yeah." Jon grins, wide and happy. "Nice. So how’s the coming out to your friends as maybe gay going?"

"Eh," Spencer does some hand waggling of his own, "As well as can be expected."

"Ryan still not talking to you?"

"Nah, right now he’s just sitting and glaring and sighing over-dramatically. And that’s making Brendon all jittery and extra manic. ‘S why I’m out here."

"Not because of my sparkling conversation then?"

"Well that too. Plus I’m out of cigarettes."

"Subtle." Jon laughs, but he passes over his pack as he asks, "So what’s the problem?"

Spencer lights his cigarette, takes a drag and thinks for a moment. He has a lots of problems but he figures he may as well go with the big one and work back to the smaller ones if he has to. "I think I’m maybe a little gay."

"Okay, let me get this straight." Jon ducks his head and grins when Spencer raises an eyebrow at his choice of words. "You’re freaking out because you get all tingly and hard when you think about boys. A boy? Brendon? Well what’s the problem with that? Either he likes you back or he doesn’t but you’re good enough friends to deal with whichever it is."

"But what if we’re not? And what if he does like me back and then we get all naked and stuff and it turns out I don’t like dudes?" Because that’s the thing, what if Spencer doesn’t like dudes and he’s just misreading the messages his brain is sending him.

"You deal. You always do, that’s who you are, Spence, you’re the guy who works out what a problem is and how to deal with it. And Brendon is the guy who always helps you, because god knows me and Ryan are about as useful as a pair of dead fish in that respect, so. I just, Spence, I don’t see what the big deal is here." Jon looks genuinely confused, like he really can’t work out why Spencer is making such a big deal out of all of this. "You like Brendon, I’m pretty damn sure he likes you, you’re both single and over the age of consent, why not try it out and see what happens? The worst thing that could happen is you’ll find out you don’t want to fuck him or he doesn’t want to fuck you and, yeah okay, that might make things a little awkward for a day or two but then you’ll just end up laughing about it and turning it into a big old joke, so just go in there and stick your tongue down his throat and see what happens.”"

"But, dude, I’m not..." Spencer pauses. He feels like he’s stuck in a loop saying the same thing over and over again, but the thing is, "I don’t even know if I’m gay. It might be just some weird fucked up phase I’m going through because Ryan’s finally driven me crazy with all his ‘embrace your feminine side and join the gayvolution crap’."

"Yeah, Ryan is kind of on a roll at the moment." Jon laughs again, but it’s warm and fond and Spencer can’t help but smile at the sound of it. "Okay, Spence, look, I’m not gay. Or at least I don’t think of myself as gay. I just like Ryan, you know? I mean, we fit. Like, he gets me and I get him and I don’t have to spend all my time explaining why I can’t be places or worry about what he’s doing when I’m not home, because he’s right there next to me and he’s doing all the same crazy shit I am."

Way back when they were holed up in the cabin, in the middle of a Kevin Smith marathon, taking a break from watching Ryan going slowly insane and Jon trying to set the world record for the most amount of weed smoked in a day without going into a coma, Brendon declared that Jon was their very own equivalent of Silent Bob. Spencer had thought Brendon was maybe a little too stoned and made him go to bed, then forgotten about it, but now, maybe now he gets what Brendon was saying. Because Jon might be a chatty motherfucker most of the time, so the Silent part is way off base, but every so often, in between the weird kind of nonsensical ramblings that seem to fall from Jon’s mouth via a direct bypass from his brain there’s a little nugget of pure genius. A perfect summation of whatever fucked up situation they’ve managed to get themselves into that suddenly clears all the confusion and doubts away.

Jon takes a last drag of his cigarette, grinds it out, then smiles and adds. "Oh and there’s the fact that I am pretty much head over heels in love with the stupid fucker."

"Love you too, asshole." Spencer totally did not hear Ryan come outside, so he maybe jumps about a foot in the air when he Ryan pushes his way in to sit between them.

Jon smiles his cat that got the cream _and_ the canary smile and says, "You love me ‘cos I’m so smart, right?"

Ryan’s smile is just as smug as Jon’s is. "Sure, you just keep telling yourself that and we’ll be fine."

Ryan’s smile changes from smug to something softer, Jon’s does the same. Spencer considers making gagging noises because the level of sugary sweetness that’s going on beside him is about to put him in a diabetic coma, but then Ryan stops grinning inanely at Jon and turns Spencer’s way, "You I don’t love so much. I’m supposed to be your best friend; if you’re having some kind of crisis, I’m the first person you should be talking to. That’s how best friends works or have you forgotten?"

Spencer decides against the gagging noises and just scowls instead. Ryan scowls back. Spencer knows the scowling thing could go on for a while. Their record for scowling and not speaking is two days and Spencer is perfectly happy to sit back and see if they can break it.

Jon, it seems, is not because he huffs in frustration and smacks them both lightly on the back of the head. "Jesus, you two are such idiots. Okay look, Ry, Spencer didn’t come to you because what’s going on in his head is something that’s between him and Brendon, not him and you. I’m willing to bet there’s days, weeks maybe, of freak outs, ‘what ifs’ and ‘oh my god what have I dones’ coming your way in the very near future, but just not today. So stop acting like someone stole your best friend away, because he’s right there sitting beside you and I figure Spencer’s got enough on his mind without having to deal with you being in a pissy mood."

Yeah, Brendon was right all along. Jon is definitely their Silent Bob.

Spencer looks at Ryan and smiles in the way that he hopes Ryan will know means he’s sorry he’s been behaving so weird lately. Then he points at Jon and says. "What he said."

Ryan’s trying really hard to keep looking like he’s mad, but Spencer can see the smile that’s beginning to form at the corners of Ryan’s mouth, and after a good long dramatic pause, Ryan rolls his eyes and lets it break free. "Okay, fine, but next time you call me, okay? I know I’ve been kind of distracted lately but I always have time for you. Always."

"Yeah, okay," Spencer grins at Ryan. "You’ll always be number one on my speed dial from now on."

"I thought I already was. I’m hurt, Spence, hurt." Ryan is doing his best to look upset, but he’s not doing a very good job of it. "Who or what has taken my place?"

Spencer pulls his phone out of his pocket and pretends to scroll through the contacts. "That pizza place just off the strip, you know, the one that has that amazing garlic bread with the cheese and the jalapeños."

"Oh god, yeah, I know the place you mean. I am willing to accept being second place to garlic heaven but I’d better be next in line or there’s gonna be trouble."

"You totally are. Right after my dry-cleaners, my vet, that cab company we used in New York that one time, that guy with the foot fetish you made me talk to in Seattle, Pete, Gabe, Bill, our lawyers, the guys from the record company, oh and that chick from Spin I did the phone interview with a year or so ago."

"Shut up, I hate you." Ryan sticks his tongue out but he’s laughing and he puts an arm round Spencer’s shoulders and pulls him in close.

Spencer leans against Ryan and lets his head fall back on Ryan’s shoulder. "I hate you too."

"So," Ryan pats at Spencer’s shoulder. "What’s up?"

Spencer shrugs. "It’s complicated."

"Spence wants in Brendon’s pants but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to get it up. What?" Jon looks all wide-eyed and innocent when Spencer glares at him. "Okay, I maybe paraphrased a little, but I’m pretty sure I hit all the main points."

Spencer thinks it over for a second then says. "I hate to admit it, but he kind of did."

"I don’t see what the problem is." Ryan says. "You and Brendon have been practically dating for years, it’s about time you got to the good stuff."

"Wait. What?" Because, seriously, what?

"Think about it, Spence. You like all the same geeky things, you spend all your time together even when we’re not on the road or doing promotional stuff, you always share rooms on hotel nights, you take his side in arguments and he saves you breakfast when you sleep late. The only thing you’re not doing is sleeping together and I’m pretty sure that’s only because you’re both too chicken to admit you want to. So you should tell him. It’s the only logical option."

Spencer thinks he should maybe have the talk about the difference between Earth-logic and Ryan-logic with Ryan again. But, worryingly, he also thinks that maybe, just maybe, Ryan has a point this time. Because when he thinks about it like that, about the way that he and Brendon already pretty much live in each other’s pockets and probably see more of each other than most married couples do, then perhaps being more than just friends with Brendon doesn’t seem like such of a leap. As long as Brendon is interested in being more than Spencer’s friend, that is.

Spencer opens his mouth to ask Ryan if he’s sure and if it really could all be that easy, but Ryan gets there first and says. "You should go talk to Brendon. But if I don’t get some quality Spencer time by tomorrow night I am coming over here to demand it. And I don’t care how naked and busy you are when I get here. Now go, get out of my sight."

Ryan makes flappy shooing motions with his hands and Spencer takes a deep breath, stands up and walks back to the house.

 

*

Spencer hesitates when he gets to the door because right now he would rather spend an entire day, like 24 whole hours, doing interviews with idiots who don’t bother to do any research than walk inside and face Brendon. Which is stupid because it’s just Brendon and Spencer knows Brendon well enough to know that whatever happens Brendon isn’t likely to judge him or make fun or even look at him funny. Okay, Brendon probably will make fun of him and look at him funny, but he’ll do it in a caring way because that’s what they all do to each other all of the time, that’s how they work as a band and as friends and Spencer wouldn’t have it any other way. But right now Spencer kind of feels like he’s back in school and the popular girl that everyone likes has found out the weird chubby kid has a crush on her and now everyone is pointing and laughing and Spencer just wants to die.

Which, okay, is maybe a little over-dramatic, but whatever, if Spencer is going to embrace his inner gayness then he may as well start channeling his inner drama queen as well. Or maybe he should go back to carefully boxing up and avoiding all of the things he doesn’t want to deal with. Maybe he should walk round the side of the house, get in his car and drive off into the sunset, buy a new identity from some shady guy in a shady bar and begin a new life. Maybe as a postman, Spencer figures he’s just about psychotic enough to work for the postal service, possibly even a little too psychotic but he could probably reign it in a bit for the interview.

Except that his car keys are sitting in the bowl on the table by the front door which means Spencer will have to actually go into the house if he wants to run away. Damn.

He’s trying to work out if hotwiring a car is really as easy as TV makes it look when the door opens and Brendon is standing there with a hopeful look on his face.

"Hi."

"Hi." Spencer lifts his hand in a weird kind of half wave thing and then feels lame for doing it.

"So," Brendon bounces on the balls of his feet a little, "Are you coming inside?"

Spencer decides to opt for the truth. "Actually I was thinking about running away and joining the postal service"

"Okay," Brendon drags out the O until it’s almost a word on its own, "you know it’s more normal to want to join the circus, right?"

"Yeah, but I’ve been there and done that." Spencer shrugs. "Thought I’d try something different."

"I guess that makes a weird kind of sense." Brendon nods like he understands, then he smiles and grabs Spencer’s hand and pulls him inside the house as he says, "Look, okay, I’m just going to say some stuff and you should listen and then you can say some stuff and then… I dunno, stuff will maybe happen."

Spencer waits until Brendon has hopped up onto the counter by the refrigerator where he always sits, then says, "That’s a lot of stuff."

Brendon doesn’t say anything for a minute or two, he just sits and looks at Spencer until Spencer starts to feel uncomfortable, like he has something on his face or he’s grown an extra head in the night. With the way his life has been going recently, there’s a distinct possibility that he might have. Then Brendon hops down from the counter again and walks slowly over to Spencer like he’s taking his time on purpose because he’s thinking something through.

Spencer really wishes Brendon would say something or else he will be forced to and it’d probably be something dumb like ‘I think you’re hot, will you be my boyfriend?’ and then Spencer would be forced to become a hermit and never speak to another living soul again from sheer embarrassment.

Spencer nervously runs a hand through his hair in case it’s sticking up weird or Jon put flowers in it again while Spencer wasn’t looking, because that has to be why Brendon is looking at him like he is. Brendon stops when he’s just in front of him and Spencer kind of wants to reach out and grab him, but he doesn’t get a chance to because Brendon pushes himself up to his toes, leans in a little and kisses him.

Except it’s less a kiss and more a meeting of mouths because it’s dry and quick and over before Spencer can really do anything more than think _Brendon’s mouth, Brendon’s mouth is on my mouth_ , and _Holy crap Brendon just kissed me_.

Brendon takes a step back. He’s smiling, but it’s a little shy and a little worried, like he's not sure if he should have done that. Spencer wants to tell him it’s okay, and ask if they can maybe do that again, but for longer this time and maybe with more tongue, but before he can Brendon starts to speak in a stream of nervous babble.

"I lied earlier, when you asked me how old I was when I worked out I was gay. Or okay, maybe I didn’t exactly lie, but what I didn’t tell you is I know the exact day it happened. It was at the third practice I ever came to, way back when I’d only known you for a couple of weeks and I already kind of knew that I liked you in a different way than how I liked Ryan and Brent but I hadn’t really admitted what it meant to myself yet. And then right before we started, when we were waiting for Brent to show up and you were just fucking around and doing some warm ups on your drums, I was watching you out of the corner of my eye and you were doing that thing where you put everything you’ve got into drumming and you threw your head back and your eyes were closed and your mouth was open and you looked, fuck Spence, you looked like every wet dream I had ever had, and I had to make some excuse about needing a drink and go jerk off in the bathroom because it was either that or beg you to let me blow you right then and there."

Spencer’s mind is still stuck in a loop over the fact that Brendon kissed him, but part of what Brendon said manages to push its way through. Because: "What the fuck? You jerked off in my grandma’s bathroom? Jesus, Brendon, that’s sick."

"Way to focus on the important part of my story there, Spence. The point is not that I defiled the sanctity of your grandma’s bathroom, the _point_ is: before that day I’d never had a guy starring in my alone time fantasies, okay."

"What, never?" Spencer finds that a little hard to believe.

"Nope." Brendon shakes his head to emphasize his point, "You were my first. You should feel honored."

Spencer kind of does feel honored and he wants to tell Brendon that just as soon as he can speak again. Because all he can really do right now is think about Brendon all wide-eyed and just a little bit desperate, frantically trying to keep quiet as he jerks himself off quick and maybe a little bit rough, leaning back against the locked door behind him so he can still hear the noise from the garage. Spencer can see it so clearly in his head: Brendon with his eyes closed and his head thrown back so his neck’s exposed like he’s imagining someone kissing him there, biting on the knuckles of one hand to keep himself quiet while he fists his cock with the other, little beads of sweat forming at his temples and just above his top lip, whispering Spencer’s name as he comes and… holy crap, Brendon was thinking about _him_. All that time Spencer was sat behind his drum kit trying to will himself to stop staring at the long lines of Brendon’s back or Brendon’s ass, oh god, Brendon’s _ass_ , Brendon was standing there thinking about Spencer.

There are a million and one questions filling Spencer’s head. Like why didn’t Brendon say something, and, okay, why hadn’t he said something to Brendon? And, most importantly as far as Spencer is concerned, does Brendon still feel the same way now? But just thinking that makes Spencer’s stomach ache because he’s not sure what he’ll do if Brendon’s answer is no. So he ends up asking the one question that seems safe. Because, yeah, he’s kind of intrigued.

"So, like, before that, what did you, you know, think about?"

Brendon bites his lip and scrunches his face up like he does when he’s embarrassed. "I always made myself think about chicks."

"Like who?"

"I don’t know, Tina Turner."

"Tina Turner? Tina ‘Thunderdome’ Turner? Not some other Tina Turner that I’m not aware of?" Because, really?

"Hey she has amazing legs for someone her age." Brendon is doing his best to look like he means it. "Also, can we maybe get back to my point?"

"I dunno." Spencer isn’t sure he’s ready to accept Brendon’s argument, and then there’s the fact that: "I’m still kind of stuck on the fact that you jerked off in my Grandma’s bathroom, I’ve kind of forgotten everything else."

"Oh. My. God, Spencer, let it go." Brendon’s almost shouting and he’s waving his arms as he speaks. Spencer resists the urge to duck and cover. He doesn’t think Brendon would appreciate the joke right now. "It happened, okay. In fact, it happened more than once, and I jerked off in your parent’s bathroom like a dozen or so times too. I was a teenager, there were hormones involved, you were the hottest thing I’d ever seen, I couldn’t help myself. But every single time I was thinking about you, okay?"

Now it’s Spencer’s turn to bite his lip, look embarrassed and stutter out: "I meant I was thinking about you jerking off, not where you were doing it."

Brendon smiles wide and bright. Spencer figures there’s something else he should tell him. "I maybe had a crush on you back then too."

"Yeah, I know. Ryan told me. I mean, not at the time. He only just told me about it, and he maybe mentioned that you still have a crush on me." Brendon pauses and frowns. "Well, at least I think that’s what he was getting at. There was a lot of talk about the ‘flames of friendship’ and ‘love burning hotter’ and how you can ‘only smother a fire for so long but if there’s still fuel it will always burn strong’. He was either telling me your darkest secrets or threatening to set me on fire. I mean, it was Ryan, so it’s hard to tell."

Spencer may not have been there, but he totally gets what Ryan was talking about. "You and Jon can write our next album, right? We don’t actually need Ryan."

"Um, I guess." Brendon looks a little worried. "Why?"

"Because," Spencer grits out, "I’m gonna to go kill him."

"Again, Spence, way to focus." Brendon throws his hands up in the air like he’s frustrated and he stares at Spencer for a moment like he’s trying to work out how to get his point across. Then he fists a hand into Spencer’s shirt and pulls him down just enough that Brendon can kiss him. And this time it’s not so quick and it’s not so dry and it lasts long enough for Spencer to forget about being mad at Ryan and focus on how good Brendon’s lips feel pressed firm and insistent against his and how he would be happy to just stand in his kitchen and kiss Brendon for hours, maybe days, weeks even, if Brendon will let him.

But before Spencer gets a chance to suggest they do just that, Brendon pulls away and says. "We’ve both been kind of dumb. I mean, I’ve been in love with you since forever and I’m pretty sure you feel the same way about me, and neither of us has done anything about it, even though I’ve tried out all my best moves on you."

Spencer isn’t sure what to focus on first, the fact that Brendon just declared his love, or the fact that Spencer has clearly missed Brendon coming on to him. Because surely Spencer would have noticed that. "What moves? I didn’t notice any moves."

"Spence, I’ve been making you sit and watch porn with me for the last six months. What the hell did you think that was about?" Brendon looks genuinely confused. "People don’t just sit and watch porn together for the sake of it."

Okay, so maybe Spencer wouldn’t know a come on if it punched him in the face. "I thought it was just a band thing, you know, what with us being kind of weird and co-dependant."

"Point." Brendon laughs a little at himself. "I guess it wasn’t the best of plans."

"What about Ryan and Jon. I thought you, you know, in the car, with the watching and..."

"Huh? Oh no, no, they totally kicked me out of the car about a minute after you left. Ryan said something about a plan not working and how you were sexually retarded and then called me a pervert for wanting to watch them. I ended up going home and jerking off instead." Brendon runs his fingers through his hair, twisting at the ends like he’s nervous. "But it was you being there that was getting me hot. I kind of wanted you to join me in the front and then you didn’t and... you probably need to get your upholstery cleaned."

Oh. _Oh._ Spencer’s kind of at a loss for words. He knows what he wants to say, just not how to say it. But then he remembers what Brendon said earlier."So, um, hey B’den, want to get naked and sweaty?"

Brendon grins, wider than wide, but he still takes a few steps back, pulls himself up so he’s sitting on the counter again and says, "Nope."

"What? But I thought you said..."

"I don’t put out on the first date." Brendon shrugs, but he’s still grinning. "I’m easy, Spence, but I’m not that easy. You gotta wine me and dine me first."

Okay, that Spencer can work with. "There’s beer in the fridge and Cheetos in a bag on the couch."

"Hey! I paid for those Cheetos, you can’t use those as part of your big romantic seduction plan."

"Fine, I’ll make you a sandwich." Spencer walks across to his refrigerator and looks inside. "What do you want, I have cheese or, um, cheese."

Spencer looks up just as Brendon makes a grab for his arm. "I want you to stop talking about sandwiches and kiss me."

Spencer lets Brendon pull him close, then closer still till Spencer is standing in between Brendon’s legs and he can feel the warmth of Brendon’s arms where they’re draped round his neck.

Spencer tilts his head to the side and considers Brendon’s request. "I thought you said you won’t do that kind of thing unless I treat you right."

Brendon laughs, wicked and low. "I said I don’t put out, not that I don’t make out."

"Oh yeah?" Spencer likes the sound of that.

"Yeah. Now stop stalling and just..."

Spencer cuts Brendon off with a kiss. Maybe it’s not the greatest kiss in the world because the angle is off and Brendon wasn’t expecting it so it takes him a moment to get on board. But then Brendon shifts a little and the angle changes so it’s just _right_ , and Spencer licks along the seam of Brendon’s lips like he’s thought of doing so many times before and Brendon opens up for him, and the slide of their tongues together is perfect and the feel of Brendon’s mouth crushed against his the best thing Spencer’s felt in years. All the doubts and the worries that Spencer had melt from his mind and he can’t for the life or him work out why he didn’t do this sooner. Because Brendon is making needy little noises and his hands are sliding into Spencer’s hair; he’s pushing up from the counter and wrapping his legs around Spencer’s waist until Spencer feels like he’s surrounded by Brendon and it’s fucking amazing.

Spencer slides his arms around Brendon and holds him in as tight as he can, because this, kissing Brendon, is the best idea that Spencer has ever had. So good that he can hear cheering and clapping in his head. Except Brendon stops kissing him and starts laughing instead, ducking down so his face is pushed against Spencer’s neck like he’s hiding. Because the applause isn’t inside Spencer’s head, it’s coming from outside in the garden where Ryan and Jon are grinning smugly like the whole thing was their idea (Ryan) and making enthusiastic thumbs up gestures (Jon). Spencer groans and hides his face against Brendon’s shoulder. He really needs to get some new friends. He’ll maybe get right on that as soon as he’s had his fill of kissing Brendon. Spencer figures Ryan and Jon are safe for, oh, say, a decade or two.

Spencer turns his head so he can whisper in Brendon’s ear. "I say we make a break for it. They can’t follow us if we lock the door."

"Don’t wanna move." Brendon tightens his hold on Spencer to emphasize his point. "If we wait them out they’ll get bored and go away. That’s the thing about stoners: short attention spans."

Spencer laughs because it’s totally true. He’s willing to wait them out if Brendon is. But then the way Brendon is clinging on to him gives him an idea. Spencer moves his hands down until he’s grabbing Brendon’s ass, takes a minute to relish the fact that he can do that now, then says, "Hold on tight," and lifts Brendon off the counter and walks them both out of the kitchen.

They don’t get far because either Brendon is way heavier than he looks or Spencer needs to start hitting the gym on a more regular basis. And also there’s a wall in Spencer’s hallway that he thinks Brendon would look really good pressed up against. Spencer tries it out. He was right, Brendon does look good, and he feels even better. Because Brendon is kissing him like he never wants to stop; his legs are still wrapped around Spencer’s waist and he keeps making these amazing noises in the back of his throat. Spencer can feel how hard Brendon is every time he rocks forward and Spencer is so turned on he thinks he might die.

Spencer’s hands keep slipping, so he presses forward and lets go, and now the only thing holding Brendon up is his legs around Spencer’s waist and the weight of Spencer pushing him against the wall. Spencer slips his hands under the hem of Brendon’s t shirt and slides them upwards, dragging the material as he goes, because Spencer wants to see touch taste Brendon’s skin, wants to lick and bite and kiss every inch of him and then start over and do it all again. Brendon’s hold slips and he slides a little lower down the wall, and finally Spencer’s got something to grind against that isn’t thin air, and the feel of it, the sudden friction as he pushes hard against Brendon and Brendon squirms back against him, has Spencer gasping and closing his eyes and trying to think of anything but Brendon so he doesn’t come in his pants like a teenager.

Spencer can feel the muscles in Brendon’s legs trembling like he’s having a hard time holding himself up. He pulls back enough for Brendon to let go then he crowds forward again, pushing a leg between Brendon’s and rolling his hips forward so he can rut against Brendon’s hip as he pulls Brendon’s t shirt up and off. And, god, there’s so much skin, so much of Brendon on display just for him that Spencer doesn’t know where to start.

Spencer presses his palm against Brendon’s chest just below his collarbone then starts to trail it down, dropping kisses across Brendon’s jaw and down his neck and loving the way that Brendon gasps and his hands tighten in Spencer’s hair when he brushes his hand over Brendon’s nipple then drops it down, down and cups Brendon’s dick through his jeans.

"Fuck, Spence, fuck, I want..." Brendon sounds wrecked. His eyes are closed and his head is thrown back against the wall and, fuck, Spencer knows exactly what he wants to see.

"Show me, Bren. Show me what it was like when you couldn’t stop yourself from jerking off. Show me how you looked when you were thinking about me."

Brendon gasps and his eyes fly open and they are wide and dark and his pupils are so, so blown. Spencer wants Brendon to look that way at him always. But then Brendon is moaning Spencer’s name and scrabbling at his zipper and pushing his jeans down far enough to pull his dick out, and Spencer takes a step back and has to push the heel of his hand against his own dick to get some relief because Brendon looks nothing like Spencer imagined. He looks a million times better.

Spencer steps forward again, crushes his lips against Brendon’s, licks into his mouth and drinks down Brendon’s moans. He can feel the rhythm of Brendon’s hips rocking forward and back, but Spencer remembers that he wanted to see this, to watch Brendon fall apart just for him. Spencer shifts to the side, just enough that he can look down and see Brendon’s hand moving fast and rough on his dick. Spencer trails a hand down Brendon’s chest, then lower across his belly, then lower still. He hesitates for just a second then curls his fingers over Brendon’s. Brendon’s eyes close and his head falls back, and Spencer mouths at Brendon’s neck, tracing the fluttering rhythm of Brendon’s heart in the pulse point just below Brendon’s skin with his tongue, all the while trying to follow the rhythm of Brendon’s hand as it slides and twists up and down his dick, until Brendon’s hips stutter forward, jerking off beat, and he moans Spencer’s name and comes liquid hot over their joined hands.

Brendon opens his eyes again and starts pushing and pulling at Spencer’s shirt muttering, “too many clothes,” under his breath. When Spencer’s shirt finally joins Brendon’s discarded on the floor, Brendon starts pushing and pulling at Spencer, turning them until they’ve switched positions and Spencer is the one with his back against the wall. Spencer’s about to ask what he wants when Brendon drops to his knees and smiles up at him as he unbuttons Spencer’s fly and pushes his jeans and boxers down. And, fuck, Spencer was so, so wrong, kissing Brendon wasn’t the best thing ever, and nor was having his hand on Brendon’s dick and watching him come because this, this right here, Brendon leaning forward and opening his mouth around Spencer’s dick, is the _absolute_ best thing ever.

Spencer’s hands scrabble at the wall behind him trying to find something, anything to hold on to and he has to close his eyes because the feel of Brendon hot and wet and perfect around him is too, too much, and if Spencer watches, if he looks down and sees the way Brendon’s lips are slick and swollen and his mouth is stretched around Spencer’s dick, then it’s all going to be over embarrassingly quickly. Spencer can feel Brendon’s hands on his hips holding him steady and maybe, maybe that’s enough to ground him, so he opens his eyes and looks and, fuck, Brendon is looking right back at him, staring up at Spencer through his eyelashes, eyes big and round and still so, so dark and his mouth is stretched wide, so wide and Spencer can’t help the way his hips jerk forward and Brendon doesn’t try to stop them. He just lets it happen and that is just too much for Spencer to take. The heat that’s been pooling at the base of his spine is spiraling up and through him, and his vision is narrowing so all he can see is Brendon and the way he’s taking every jerk of Spencer’s hips, and Spencer is coming so hard he sees stars.

Spencer’s lets himself slide down the wall until his hits the floor with a bump and suddenly he has a lap full of Brendon, kissing him and saying things like, "You’re so fucking hot, Spence, so hot," and Spencer wants to agree and tell Brendon he feels the same way but he can’t seem to form words properly. All that comes out is a croaky sounding, "Hi."

"Hi." Brendon grins then leans in to whisper in Spencer’s ear. "You know this makes us boyfriends now, right? No take backs."

Spencer is totally on board with that idea. "Yeah, you’re pretty much stuck with me now, just sayin’."

"Next time, though, we should totally try and make it to your bedroom, or a couch, or someplace with, you know, carpet." Brendon looks at the wooden floor in Spencer’s hallway and pouts, but he hums appreciatively when Spencer takes pity on him and rubs his knees.

Spencer is too busy thinking about the fact that there’s going to be a next time to suggest any potential places it could happen. There’s a lot of places he can think of that fit the criteria, so maybe they should try them out one by one, just to see which is best.

"Or, oh hey, we could go see your grandma. For old times sake, if you know what I mean." Brendon grins wickedly and waggles his eyebrows.

Spencer rolls his eyes. "Yeah, see, I was going to spring for pizza like a gentleman, but you’ve ruined the mood now."

"Mmm, pizza." Brendon rubs his belly and makes happy noises. "I’ll totally make it worth your while if you buy me pizza."

"I dunno." Spencer shrugs then makes a big show of stretching and yawning. "I’m kind of tired. I might go take a nap." Spencer is so very, very smooth.

Spencer takes a couple of steps before he realizes Brendon is still sitting on the floor behind him. Okay, so maybe Spencer is not quite as smooth as he thought, seeing as how Brendon obviously did not get the oh so subtle ‘you, me, my bed, now’ hint. He guesses he’ll just have to make it a little more obvious.

Spencer turns and raises an eyebrow. "You coming?"

Brendon looks down at his lap, shrugs, and then looks up at Spencer with a smile on his face. "Well, not right now, but if you give me ten minutes I’m sure we can work something out so that I am."

Spencer laughs. He can’t help it, his boyfriend is an idiot. But he’s Spencer’s idiot, so. "Shut the fuck up, Brendon, and come to bed with me."

Brendon grins so, so wide. "Well, seeing as you asked so nicely. Help me up?"

Spencer reaches out and pulls Brendon to his feet and then turns towards the stairs. Brendon doesn’t let go of Spencer’s hand until they’re lying side by side, wrapped up in blankets and each other. Spencer doesn’t call him on it, though, because it takes two to hold hands and Spencer has no intention of letting Brendon go.

*

Sometimes Spencer dreams that he's in college, or working in a normal boring everyday office type job, and sometimes he dreams that he’s a salesman, going from door to door selling encyclopedias to lonely housewives. But now, when he dreams the encyclopedia-selling dream, the house he’s walking up to is one he knows well, and when he looks down at himself he’s not dressed in a cheap suit and there’s no heavy case in his hand filled with books. And, when the door opens, it’s Brendon standing there, and he’s dressed like normal and smiling like normal and not acting weird or trying to seduce Spencer with cheesy lines and fluttering eyelashes. He’s just Brendon and Spencer is just Spencer. And when Spencer wakes up with a start just as Brendon is sinking to his knees and smiling up at him, he’s only disappointed for a moment. Because then he remembers that Brendon is lying in bed next to him, so Spencer shifts until there’s no space between them, closes his eyes and goes back to sleep with a smile on his face.


End file.
